Six Month Check-up

Happy six month birthday, Shilo!!! And to celebrate she got a trip to the doctor’s and three shots. Not the best gift, but hey, it will help to keep her from getting really sick in the future. Here are her stats:

Weight: 16lbs 9.5oz (50-75%)

Height: 27 inches (90-95%)

Head circumference: 17.3 inches (75-90%)

Shilo is very close to what Kayley was at this age. Though their size and build might be similar, it is so interesting to see how different the two are by the 6 month mark.

Tummy time:

Kayley didn’t prefer it, but she would do it and thus rolled a lot and did inch worm crawling by 6 months.

Shilo hates tummy time mostly and flat out refuses to do anything while on her tummy. She has rolled over a total of 3 times in the past 2 months, and has no interest in crawling.

Sitting:

Both girls started sitting around 4 months.

Both girls help to pull themselves up into a sitting (or standing) position when holding onto someone’s hands.

Kayley liked to sit and play with things, but she wanted to try and move while she did it too (thus started tripod crawling at 6 and half months).

Shilo just likes to sit, play and watch. She is just starting to reach farther than she can to try and get toys. She is however starting to try and pull herself up onto my leg and seems to also be trying to pull herself up to stand.

Fine motor skills:

Kayley could move objects from hand to hand and turn objects by using her wrist.

Shilo is a pro at this and mastered it before Kayley did. This is where Shilo has been focusing her development and can manipulate objects really well. She is also already starting to do pincher motion to pick up things, and also scoops up toys sometimes too.

Attachment:

Kayley really loved when I held her, but also really liked it when anyone else did. Yes she preferred me, and then her daddy, but she could have cared less about who held her at family functions and at church.

Shilo only want me. She seems to prefer other women over men. Unless in a good mood and she doesn’t realize I slipped out of the room she cries with a fierce demand to be back in my arms or at least have me be in touching distance.

Both girls love being in a jumper, being held so they can standing on the ground and can mimic walking and jumping. They both loved to laugh and giggle, though completely different from one another. Shilo loves to examine things orally, while Kayley would just pick up an object to check it out and then it would possibly go in her mouth. Both talk and babble, but that’s completely different too. It’s funny to see how similar and different they are just within the first 6 months of their life!

Anyway! Shilo’s appointment went really well. Even though she isn’t rolling over, everything else is on track or slightly ahead. I was never worried about her development, but it was nice to hear a processional say she wasn’t either since Shilo is focusing on other areas to succeed in. I do have to say that Shilo loved the paper! It was so fascinating to watch her feet as she used them to crinkle and grab the paper. I’m glad she got to have a bit of fun before getting her 3 shots. She did great though. Less than a minute of crying and only a single solitary tear, and then she was fine. She is extra tired and I’m guessing she will nap late today. 

Crinkle! Crinkle! Crinkle!

Notice her feet. She was having fun looking in the mirror in front of her so she could watch herself play with her toy and the paper

About 2 minutes after her shots and she barely looks like she had been upset. That's my little trooper!

Easter

Easter was a beautiful sunny day. So sunny I even got a sun burn. I’m strangely happy about this since we haven’t had this much sun in a while. The sad part about the day is that Kayley, Shilo and I had colds (and still do, along with Andrew) that we didn’t want to spread to our dear friends at church. We thus stayed home and missed Easter service. =( We were very bummed about that. But my family gave the okay for us to still join them for the rest of the day since they had already been exposed to our germs. 

A beautiful day

 We started our day slow and gave the girls their Easter baskets at home. We don’t know how much Kayley understood, but we explained to her that she and her sister were getting a special gift because on Easter we remember the greatest gift that was given to us: Jesus’ life, followed by His resurrection so that by grace we can be forgiven of our sins. She has been reading her Easter book a lot lately, so we have told her that Jesus got a really bad ouchy to help us not get the worst ouchy of all, and that His ouchy only lasted three days. Every time she reads her Easter book, she spends more time looking at the page where it shows Jesus’ friends being sad that He died on the cross. Many conversations have thus happened in relation to that scene. 

Chewing her new book

Kayley reading Shilo's book to her new sheep

We then headed over to my mom’s for a quick lunch and nap time. Nap time was followed by chalk time so Kayley could use one of her new gifts. She really liked being able to draw on the ground and was very interested in helping you draw your picture. She eventually decided to draw her own picture.

 

Then it was time to look for eggs! Kayley and her cousins, Sara and Katie, were exiled to a room while me, Andrew, my mom, sister and brother-in-law hid eggs for them to find. Andrew and Rick had fun hiding eggs for the older girls, while us ladies had fun putting eggs all over the grass and deck for Kayley to find. We hid a few eggs for the older girls to find too.

Find the egg!

Find the egg!

Kayley was pretty excited to look for eggs, and she caught on pretty quick to what she was supposed to do. As her bucket filled she marched around the yard saying “more more!” as she found more and more eggs. She was so into it that I had her give her aunty the eggs she had collected at one point so that Heidi could hide them in the yard again. Kayley was a delighted little girl, and Shilo slept through the whole thing. Sara and Katie had a lot of fun too, and their eggs were really hidden. It was fun when Kayley figured out the eggs opened and that there were little surprised inside. Hers were all candy free, and filled with stickers, a few small toys, “toddler snack” instead. I believe a craft time involving many stickers will be happening soon.

Collecting eggs

"More! More! More!" This is how she was marching around.

We had a lovely dinner that followed that my mom mostly prepared, and had a fun time at the table together. Then for dessert we had Easter Basket Cake. Something I grew up eating for Easter. 

Kayley and I are behind the camera

The Easter Basket Cake

And since it was so sunny, we took some lovely and fun family pictures too. This is when we discovered, that unlike Kayley, Shilo loves to play with grass. It was so hard to get her to look at the camera because she kept watching her toes wiggle in the grass and watching her fingers touch the grass. So cute! 

Happy Shilo

Classic Shilo

Our little Easter bunny

Rock Star Easter Bunny

Both playing with their toes

<3 Sisters <3

Our little family

Our goofy family!

Happy Easter everyone! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Thank you God!

Egg Dying

Kayley loves to do all kinds of art, so when I told her we were going to do a craft with eggs, she got really excited, even though she didn’t know what an egg was (I’m slightly allergic, and it seems she’s at least sensitive to them, so we don’t have many eggs in our home). So, a few days before Easter, I took out our Disney Princess Egg Dye kit she picked. After the table, and all the different bowls of dye were set up, Kayley donned on her craft smock. I explained to her she had to be gentle to the eggs or they would break, and then let her hold one as I told her what we were going to do. She wanted to know what all the colors were, so we named the colors several time before actually starting. 

Intently listening to what we are going to do

Together we placed the first egg on the dipping utensil, and gently put an egg in the pink dye. I showed her how to move the egg with the utensil so the whole egg would change colors. She thought it was pretty cool the egg changed colors and gave the event a few excited “WOW!!!!”s and “OOOOHHH!!!”s. We did a couple eggs just plain before I introduced the white crayon to her.

Making sure the egg is colored all the way

Mix it up!

Kayley was excited to color the egg. Ironically, white is one of her favorite crayons to color with, so she already knew she wouldn’t be able to see her drawings much. She did have a hard time pressing down hard enough to color while holding the egg, so she asked me to draw too. She was even more amazed when we put the eggs that had been colored into dye and you could see what was drawn. 

Coloring her egg with a white crayon

Wow!

Day one we dyed 12 eggs. The next day when they were dry we got out the stickers that came with the kit and decorated the eggs some more. She likes stickers, but these stickers didn’t stick to the eggs that well, so she lost interest half way through. All of the eggs turned out amazing!

The eggs pre-stickers